Reciprocity
by Cynthia Arrow
Summary: "Want. That’s what they’re lacking. Pining is not desire."


Author: Cynthia Arrow  
  
Disclaimers: Not mine. Like 'em, though. Works of this length can't possibly infringe.  
  
Rating: PG  
  
A/N: post-ep of sorts for "Commencement" (4.22)-a smidgen of a monologue drawing upon those words of Amy's that the writers left hanging out there so obscenely. Oh, and this is Amy talking. I don't tend to agree with her most of the time. Might not have her voice down either. But, judging from how well she's liked, I'm not sure anyone'll care much.   
  
Reciprocity   
  
Do you love him? I asked her. She didn't answer. Hell, I didn't expect her to. This is Saint Donna we're talking about. I already know her answer anyway, if she could be honest. Honest about everything else, doesn't know when to shut her mouth, but painfully oblivious to a mass of feelings so big in her life you can see it like a smog around her when she walks through the office and throws her unconsciously possessive arm around him.  
  
But she can't love him, really. How could she? She is still awed by the man. Despite all she knows about him, she looks at him like he is a frosted pop tart. She sees icing, and she gladly ignores that maybe he's one of those new flavors, like Wild Berry. Hell, she hates Wild Berry, but she decides if he's got frosting, she'll love him. Why does she make me angry enough to come up with bad metaphors?  
  
I can't say I've seen the worst of Joshua Lyman. But I've imagined it. I think I could deal. I think I could love him. Some of the very things that most annoy everyone else about him, they're what I like. Yes, I guess I can still be awed by the man. I get caught up just like sweet Donna in the wonder that he is. His smugness, physically worn on his body like a tailored suit. It colors his walk and his mannerisms. It's intoxicating. Donna gets that. But does she get how much better it is when the smugness turns to righteous indignation, how his nostrils flare, how he shouts, how he's wrong, how he doesn't think things through, how even when he's being an asshole, he's still one of the smartest, sexiest men on the planet? And can she shoot him down, which often necessary, but at the same time thinking all that, without saying it or showing it? I think not.  
  
And the way he condescends to her. He never did that to me. I am his equal. I throw my confidence in his face, and I get to see it reflected back, magnified. That intensity is lost on Donna Moss. She wants to bridle it, to rein it in. She considers it a victory to make him exasperated, unable to speak. I consider it a victory when he comes at me with every macho, egotistical weapon in his arsenal, and whether I win or he wins, we take things to the limit and there's a respect. Okay, so I like to win, but I want to see him at his best before he loses. I want to see the look in his eyes that says he hates me for being on top, but he wants me more than ever.  
  
Want. That's what they're lacking. Pining is not desire. Donna's schoolgirl crush, her secretary hero worship, is nothing. She can't love him like I do. She can't bring out his very best and love his very worst. What she does is look at him through rose-colored glasses. They dull his edges, and without his edges, he's another self-important politician in a nice suit, floating through the world as if he's untouchable. But I touch him, in every sense of the word. I knock him off that pedestal he poses on. I can do things with my hands he'd have to try and teach Donna.  
  
So Donna sits and stares at her pop tart. She doesn't even contemplate a flavor she'd really enjoy, maybe a nice boring strawberry like herself. No, she wants to go for the exotic, even though it's not her favorite. It's flashy, but if she doesn't truly like the taste of Wild Berry, what's the point? But that's Donna for you. She's stupidly stubborn. She doesn't even realize or would she care that she can only love him with frosting. Of course, what does it really matter? I don't love him. And whether she does properly or not, he loves her.  
  
Turns out he likes strawberry. 


End file.
